My wife has a horrible time with HSBC, and I always get a bit aggitated when I see people recommend them, so I'm glad to see other people sharing their horror stories about them.
Her situation is that she visits family in Canada once a year. They won't make a note of her being out of the country if she calls them beforehand. The fraud people then call her if she needs to use her card at unsociable (for Canada) hours and never leave answerphone messages. When they do get her, they require her to answer security questions without identifying themselves first. If she calls them, the person she speaks to has no way of knowning if anyone has been trying to call her for any reason.
The problem is that they all suck. In the UK, I've tried NatWest (RBS), Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC and so far, and HSBC are the least worst... they are by no means good, but they're better than many of the others. They still have numerous problems though: customer service agents that disagree with each other and provide inconsistent information, that annoying online banking dongle, payments being declined at random (particularly embarrassing in shops).
Still, at least unlike NatWest, it didn't take 3 weeks of dealing with different customer services staff to withdraw some cash, and I never got their online banking to work at all... after repeated attempts. Every customer service staff member would make excuses about not being able to help me due to their security restrictions.
HSBC is one of the only banks to have a section on their Online Banking where you can tell them your travel plans and which cards you will be taking. Has always prevented fraud calls for me.
Her situation is that she visits family in Canada once a year. They won't make a note of her being out of the country if she calls them beforehand. The fraud people then call her if she needs to use her card at unsociable (for Canada) hours and never leave answerphone messages. When they do get her, they require her to answer security questions without identifying themselves first. If she calls them, the person she speaks to has no way of knowning if anyone has been trying to call her for any reason.
They are, in my opinion, the "Worlds worst Bank"